Spikes Tactical 416 Spike Wildcat

engineerbrian · Mar 25, 2018

Spikes Tactical has a brand new Wildcat that was debuted at the Big 3 East last week, its the 416 Spike! If I'm not mistaken this post is the first press for the new round :cool:

The 416 Spike is an insanely large, and subsonic round that uses 308 brass as a parent case. It leaves the barrel at 1050 FPS so it is subsonic and hard hitting. Ammunition has not gone into production yet and will be a hand loaders cartridge until it picks up steam, but barrels are ready to roll.

Check out the video below and Cole from Spikes will give you the low down on it. I'd put a link the their site in the thread, but its so new it hasn't even been put on their site yet.

[YT]wlVAcBxdBK8[/YT]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlVAcBxdBK8&lc=z23auzkj4sfafzdnmacdp4340404mnluxtujzjxysqhw03c010c

engineerbrian · Mar 25, 2018

He is a comparison picture.

416 Spike, .308, 300BO, 5.56

Ponch · Mar 25, 2018

So would a 45 osprey can hold up to this? Only reason to have a subsonic round is to shoot it suppressed, but not that many people have a 50cal rifle can.

Park ranger · Mar 25, 2018

What do you do with this?

noddaz · Mar 25, 2018

That IS the question

Park ranger said:
What do you do with this?

Yes, what is its intended purpose?

gwchem · Mar 25, 2018

noddaz said:
Yes, what is its intended purpose?

Its for when a buffalo kicks in your back door, but you don't want to wake the neighbors.

woodline · Mar 25, 2018

I saw a preview of this a few days ago. Seems pretty awesome because reasons. Honestly I am not sure why, but it interests me a lot more than .300blk. Hoping pressures will be low enough that I can safely use my Liberty Cosmic. Which should be out of NFA jail by summer.

engineerbrian · Mar 25, 2018

Without watching the video again i beleive Cole states its basically for the guy that wants something different in an AR. He was telling me about someone that recently took it bear hunting and dropped a large bear in its tracks with it, so i guess its a viable hunting round for large game too.

As for the can, i dont remember what was on the gun, but i will get an answer ASAP.

StantonCree · Mar 25, 2018

IMHO this has nice hunting application and that’s it. Getting hit with a 416 at 1050 FPS is like running into a fire truck at 70. I’m not a big game hunter but I’m 100% not adverse to new innovation for any shooting.

erwos · Mar 25, 2018

Mixed feelings. Cheaper brass than 458 SOCOM, but bullet selection is worse (no 500-600gr) and there's apparently no supersonic option (which makes sense given case capacity). Those cheap 350gr Rainier bullets really made 458 SOCOM almost reasonable to reload, and it doesn't look like there's any .416 equivalent.

ETA: Man, I must have been half-asleep when I wrote the above. This is an AR-10 cartridge, so these are presumably running double-stack in that platform. That makes this somewhat more interesting - 458 SOCOM is limited to 10 in a "30rd" mag - but it still seems less flexible. There is a whole crowd of people who swap uppers constantly that I don't really understand, so perhaps this is for them.

engineerbrian · Mar 28, 2018

Ponch said:
So would a 45 osprey can hold up to this? Only reason to have a subsonic round is to shoot it suppressed, but not that many people have a 50cal rifle can.

I traded emails over the few days with John at Spikes, he was the one who designed this round.

The suppressor we used was a Bowers VERS 458. He wasn't sure about using something like an Osprey since the 416 Spike upper is threaded for 5/8 x 24.

http://www.bowersgroup.com/product/vers-458/

lazarus · Mar 28, 2018

Its like a hand of god, but a really slow one. If you can find bullets that will expand well that slow you put an inch hole straight through whatever you hit.

But you won’t get any hydrostatic shock with a subsonic bullet. Like a really well penetrating .45acp.

Even a really well penetrating .45acp isn’t my first thought on what to shoot a bear with. I’d like some shock in there too (so 1600fps+)

.45-70 is going to hit a lot harder. It might make a good light armor penetrator out of a suppressed rifle. Supposing it is closer range (IEbeing able to hit your target with the kind of bullet drop you’d get). I’d imagine with the right bullet it would put holes through level III plate, at least things like UHWPE.

Oneshot8541 · Apr 20, 2018

We've actually made supersonic rounds but at the time of Big-3 we hadn't achieved enough velocity to make them interesting. We've since been able to achieve around 2250 FPS using a 180gr. projectile. The cost of reloading is all in the projectile. I'm making the test rounds using either 7.62 NATO or .308 cut-down cases and no special or "custom" dies. Just .308 Small Base full length resizing die and a cut-down 416 Rigby Neck-sizing die.

Oneshot8541 · Apr 5, 2019

Update... Supersonic rounds have been able to achieve around 2400 FPS. The Projectile is a 202gr. Controlled Fracturing round that is devistating to anything soft that it hits out to at least 400yds. Checking the numbers on both Sub and Supersonic we've been able to post pretty impressive numbers. The newest Subsonic round weighs-in at 408gr., travels right around 1090 FPS with the Kinetic Energy at the Muzzle of 1077 Ft. Lbs.! (yet still Whisper-quiet) The BC of the projectile is .886 so at 1000yds. it's still moving 879 FPS!!! The energy at 500yds. is 838 Ft. Lbs.! I've made hits out to 500yds. but the drop is significant enough (just under 18 MILS of Elevation) that any further requires a Hold-over.
The Supersonic round at 2400 FPS from the Muzzle boasts 2584 Ft. Lbs. Kinetic Energy! However, because of the low BC (only .232) it drops off fast so at 500yds. it's only going 1075 FPS with the Kinetic Energy at 518 Ft. Lbs. and 6+ MILS of Elevation adjustment.
This is definitely a Medium-Range round.
The accuracy has been right around 1 MOA if I do my part with either Subs or Supers.
It's important to note that the Barrel Length on the Test Rifle is only 11.5". The Suppressor is a Bowers.

engineerbrian · Apr 5, 2019

Pictures for reference

Oneshot8541 · Apr 5, 2019

lazarus said:
Its like a hand of god, but a really slow one. If you can find bullets that will expand well that slow you put an inch hole straight through whatever you hit.

But you won’t get any hydrostatic shock with a subsonic bullet. Like a really well penetrating .45acp.

Even a really well penetrating .45acp isn’t my first thought on what to shoot a bear with. I’d like some shock in there too (so 1600fps+)

.45-70 is going to hit a lot harder. It might make a good light armor penetrator out of a suppressed rifle. Supposing it is closer range (IEbeing able to hit your target with the kind of bullet drop you’d get). I’d imagine with the right bullet it would put holes through level III plate, at least things like UHWPE.

I guess it depends somewhat on the 45-70 round but based on the charts I looked at for a standard 45-70 (1900 FPS at the Muzzle) the 416 SPIKE posts better numbers. We shot the Sub into Ballistic Gel and it tumbled right through the 16" Block of Gel. I have video but I don't know how to download it. I also have video of the 180 Gr. Supersonic that we tested before settling on the 202 gr. (FYI: The 202 gr. weight may change slightly because we had a few projectiles expand prematurely.)

Oneshot8541 · Apr 5, 2019

engineerbrian said:
Pictures for reference

These are the 180gr. Super and the 408gr. Sub. The ballistic gel in the background is from the 408gr. Sub.

engineerbrian · Apr 5, 2019

Oneshot8541 said:
These are the 180gr. Super and the 408gr. Sub. The ballistic gel in the background is from the 408gr. Sub.

I accidently deleted my picture of the super sonic gel :sad20:

holesonpaper · Apr 5, 2019

That's a big fat slow - but amazingly pretty round. You'll want to suppress but I don't have anything in my collection that big.... Oh snap, I guess that means another can... 300BLK's big brother? How about an AR10 pistol with monster truck can...

Oneshot8541 · May 2, 2022

New Info...
I was able to make a couple of Bolt Action rifles in this caliber. Its metric name is 10.56 x 38mm. New Subsonic fracturing projectiles have also been made. Here are pictures of the new Bolt Rifles as well as several rounds of the new projectiles fired into Ballistic Gel from 100yds.

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